


Christmas gift ficlets 2014

by pennypaperbrain



Series: Pennypaperbrain's Miscellaneous Ficlets [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Cats, Dancing, Dom John Watson, Gen, M/M, Retirement, Sub Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-04 20:01:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3087155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennypaperbrain/pseuds/pennypaperbrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These 221bs, ficlets and drabbles were written to prompts, as gifts, at Christmas 2014. Each has its own chapter, and different ratings and tags theoretically apply to each, but I don't want to go warning-mad. Suffice to say two out of the six contain BDSM.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Lesson

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abrae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrae/gifts), [Persian Slipper (Luthe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthe/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one’s for anon, who was having a hard time and wanted a ficlet with ‘dancing, possessiveness/jealousy and happy endings’.

_10.30pm_

Sherlock is taller, leaner and suppler than John is. You could call him handsome. Also, he can really dance.

John’s been on chatting duty, and not achieved much. Sherlock, on the other hand, is sweeping a woman off her feet. Literally. Apparently it’s part of the ballroom dance, waltz, whatever. He’s only doing it to get information of course, but the chandeliers are glittering, Sherlock’s eyes are twinkling, the woman’s giggling and… good grief. John stuffs a canapé into his mouth.

The music finishes. Sherlock’s conquest gives him a cutesy wave and trips off towards the door. Finally.

He wanders over to John as if casually, then mutters, ‘Washout. She knows nothing.’

‘Better go home, then,’ says John, tugging at his itchy cravat.

‘Could do,’ responds Sherlock. ‘A moment ago you looked like you fancied a try at this.’

John is aware of blood rising to his face, and of Sherlock observing it.

‘I do,’ he says.

First Sherlock looks as if he isn’t quite sure what he heard. Then he smiles.

‘That can be arranged,’ he replies.

_1.10am_

There’s a light on in 221b. Sherlock is teaching John to dance, upstairs to avoid disturbing Mrs Hudson. They sweep in and out of John’s room and across the landing.

On each revolution they swing that bit closer to the bed.


	2. The Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 100-word ficlet for acafanmom/abrae, who asked for ‘something lovingly D/s-y’.

Sherlock, stripped to his silk boxers, is on his knees.

He doesn’t much like being down there. It serves no purpose. But John told him to do it.

John told him to do it.

Odd, that such an indefinable, unquantifiable phenomenon would influence his actions. Odder that he would want it to.

Sherlock stares at the carpet. He deduces the number of times Mrs Hudson ran the hoover over it yesterday. He deletes these findings.

John enters the room.

John approaches.

Sherlock is on his knees.

John puts a hand in his hair and strokes it. That’s all. That’s _all_.


	3. Glasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A 221b for persian-slipper, who asked for retirement fic.

Sherlock observes the angle at which John studies a bee that needs rescue from a sticky patch on the patio table. He calculates the degree of distortion to John’s eyeball. 

‘You need glasses,’ he says. Best be practical about these things. He had his own hearing aid fitted years ago.

‘It’s just sun in my eyes, Sherlock.’

***

Sherlock pauses over his petri dish and sees John squinting at a bill.

‘Admit it, you’re far-sighted.’ It’s futile to deny reality.

‘True. I always save enough to pay for the electricity,’ John replies, and wanders off.

***

John is slicing strawberries.

Sherlock watches his fingers. They’re weathered, tough and strong. Unlikely, however, to withstand a kitchen knife. Hardly the worst danger they’ve faced, but still.

He puts his arms around John’s waist.

‘Get glasses, John. No good pretending we’re immortal,’ he says. It is illogical not to accept the ageing process. Though it hurts.

John turns, obviously tries to focus, and mostly fails.

‘Give it a rest!’ he snaps. Pause. ‘Look… what you’re saying… I can see it well enough.’

***

John comes back from town wearing bifocals.

‘What persuaded you?’ Sherlock asks, pleased.

John shrugs. He regards Sherlock with a clear, focused gaze.

‘So everyone dies,’ he says. ‘But getting a few more years of seeing you first would be best.’


	4. Trickster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one’s a 221b for mazaherstuff, who wanted to know about the significant cat in Sherlock’s life.

'You're not a cat person, Sherlock - are you?'

John and Sherlock are watching a moggy that’s shot up onto a curtain rail. There’s a stolen gem in its collar tag.

'I don't like them, no. But I had a kitten once. Loki,' says Sherlock.

'Really?' John is intrigued.

'Oh, not for long. I was seven, and out examining insects in the garden. I heard mewing under a broken flowerpot. It was Loki. I was too young to deduce how she got there.'

'You adopted her? That was… sweet.'

Sherlock makes a strange noise in his throat. The cat on the curtain stops hissing.

'Perhaps I got attached. I kept her in a nearby barn. She stayed for the bread and milk I brought. I couldn't take her home because Mycroft hated animals then. Redbeard was quite enough, he said. Unfortunately he found Loki and insisted on telling Mummy.'

Abruptly the cat above them springs down, and rubs up against Sherlock’s legs.

'So what happened?' asks John, half-wincing already. He imagines various scenes: rejection by parents or by Mycroft; attack by Redbeard; tragic death.

Sherlock reaches down and skilfully unhooks the tag from around the neck of his new feline friend.

'Oh, nothing much,' he says, with a brief half-smile. 'Loki ignored me from that point on. Totally fixated on my brother.'


	5. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vikulee asked for Johnlock, taking a Christmas trip to handle something emotionally heavy that happened.

'Speak platitudes, goldfish. Lie to me,' badgers Sherlock.

'What, so you can call me naive? We fucked up. A man died.'

John’s annoyed… but he’s not annoyed enough to dislodge Sherlock. His head makes a comfortable weight on John’s chest as they sit by the cottage’s open fire. There’s a candle-lit tree, strings of cards, glittering tinsel… and a corpse back in London.

'But it's not a crime that we saved our own lives,' says John. A soldier is clear on these things.

'Life? Mere temporary chemical imbalance,' Sherlock counters.

'An interlude, then,' suggests John. Body warmth, whiskey, mince pies.


	6. Power Exchange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For anon, who requested a ficlet about S/J ‘exchanging gifts, established relationship (anything bdsm)’.

1

Sherlock gives John a cane. A simple bamboo stalk, but one ridged and uneven. It’s flexible and high quality and visibly harsh.

John tries the cane carefully on his own palm, winces slightly, and smiles.

He orders Sherlock to strip, roughly cuffs and gags him, and shoves him over the desk. By the fifth blow, tears are spilling from Sherlock’s eyes, his mind heaving and loosening with need, anger, relief.

He moans, indistinct around the gag: ‘John.’

2

John gives Sherlock a collar made of hand-tooled black leather with a single silver ring at the front.

‘Collars? So obvious,’ Sherlock sniffed weeks ago. But John interpreted the hint. 

Sherlock balks a little now, holding the gift up to the light from the Christmas tree John insisted they have. The thought of such a thing around his neck… it’s more intimate than a beating. _Humiliation_ whispers in his brain.

John slaps Sherlock’s raw arse, locks him in the collar, and leads him naked around the room by the ring. This is difficult in a new way. And yet fascinating.

‘Sherlock,’ John says.

John sits in his armchair with Sherlock kneeling beside him, tethered to the leg of the little round table. Sherlock watches John eat mince pies, and on command licks pastry crumbs from his fingers.

It’s quiet.

3

Purging and peace. Gifts. Bondage.


End file.
